97 comments:

OH MY GOD!!!!!!I dont know what shocks me more, that you now are the mother of a smurf or the fact that you have plastic spiders that look so real????????I love how your other daughter had to get her head in the photo too lol.

OK I just KNOW I'm not first, but that girl should join Blue Man Group! As for the house size, we're growing out of our same sized home with no basement. We have 1 child, and one on the way. We are just the worst packrats, and I'd love to know how you don't clutter everything all up. We call one of the bedrooms the "basement" and it's where we store a bunch of stuff lol.

LOVE IT! I remember my now 2 yo got a hold of a purple marker about a year ago. She covered herself head to toe in markings. I tried to be stern with her, but it was just too damn funny. And she was just so proud of herself!

Unfortunately I wasn't blogging then, it would definitely be a great post. I scrapbooked it as "The advertures of Kallie and the Purple Crayon".

I got into a fight with a crazy old man today at the groucery store in front of my kids...of coarse it was not my falt. Anyway, my cart scratched his car when I was loading kiddos in the mini van. I ws very apologetic...I'm soo sorry sir, yada yada yada. ANyway he wouldn't let it go. Kept screaming at me..did I menion I was with my babies?? Ok, so I'm walking the cart to the cart return thingy and he is behind me bitching about said scratch....I snapped. Turned around and gave him a very large piece of my mind. And God did it feel good. Grandpa Jerky wips out his cell and continues to call the cops on me...whatever dude, I left and told him Merry Christmas and "God Bless you b/c you need it." Not sure why I feel you need to know this story.....maybe you can relate. Anyway, I have been reading your stories and you make me feel better about this whole mommy gig. It is a very isolating job and it is real nice to know there are others out there like you and me!Isabel

Could have been worse...you don't keep the SCISSORS in that drawer, do you??? Somehow we have avoided adventures in "home haircuts" with kids #1-4, but lately I've been less dilligent about making sure the scissors aren't within reach, and kid #5 is not quite 3, so we may yet experience it.How fun was it to clean the blue out of that tub?!?Tina

LOL too funny. Could be worse though - my youngest two did the exact same thing, on the couch, with what HAD been a full jar of peanut butter. All over themselves, the couch, the carpet, and everywhere else they'd wandered or touched. Giggling all the way. We're still trying to get it off the couch *sigh*

At least they were plastic spiders. I can't look at the picture without feeling a little squeamish though. I seem to have passed on my spider phobia to my 7 year old, E~. Last night he came sobbing into his bedroom because there was a big spider by the sink so he couldn't brush his teeth. As any good mother would, I thought he was trying to get out of brushing his teeth. There really was a spider, albeit a small one, & I was able to take care of it without too much trouble. I guess there goes my plan of making E~ the official spider killer when my husband isn't home.

Yikes. I don't know whats worse, seeing a blue little girl or the shock of all those spiders in the tub! I HATE spiders and those are so life like! (at least from the picture) I almost jumped out of my computer chair. I just have to commend you on providing me with a great laugh!

She looks so happy to have been smurfed!! LOL My 3-year-old drags his rocking horse all over the house to enable himself to get into whatever he wants. So while I'm downstairs doing laundry, or helping the two older boys with their homework, or anything other than looking directly at him, he's off sneaking into something! Playing in the bathroom sink, that's a favorite of his! The one time we made the mistake of taking all of his things away that he used for stools, and every day he went and put the dog's food into the water. We gave him back his step stool since he needed it to wash his hands after playing in dog food and water anyway.

Its times like this that you really can't get yourself to scream at her when she is soooo gleefully smiling back at you, even though you know you've got extra work to do now - cleaning her and everything else that's blue...

On the bright side, she wasn't sitting next to the permanent marker drawer... We now only keep one sharpie in the house, in a special safe place. Problem is, I forgot where that place was & haven't been able to find it since.

That is so funny. My 3 year old Foster son loves to be an artist when he should not. For our christmas cards this year I had a picture put on them that I took one day when I caught him trying to color my carpet, as soon as I asked him if he was coloring my carpet, he threw the crayon, and said NO with his guilty face, in the picture you can even see where the crayon landed when he threw it.

My 2-year-old is always doing this too. I can never figure out why they get it all over their face... do they try to taste/eat it? I think my confusion is because my daughter does this with markers... but she comes away looking exactly like your little girl. And ugh!! I realize kids are supposed to get dirty and play, but am I the only one who stresses out when they make messes like that?? lol

I think it's just fabulous that when your kiddos do something messy, bad, lazy, or disobedient, they must pose for the blog picture before being cleaned, grounded, sent to their room or whatever. :) This must give you a good window of time to try NOT to freak out about the small stuff.

Compliments the chocolate face one quite well *giggle* I kept all the art supplies in a 10 gallon plastic thinger up on the highest shelf in the pantry. I'm finding it harder to deal with teenagers. DS/14 gets into EVERYTHING, so we've resorted to locking up stuff with something very similar to this. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40100192

Heavens forbid if they ever figure out that the back of it can be unscrewed~! LOL

We have a keyed door on our study which is where I keep all the Christmas pressies as well.

At least it was blue paint that washed off "fairly" easily. My little bit got ahold of a laundry marker when she was 2 1/2. By the time I caught her, she had a black moustache, black drawings up and down her arms, her little brother had black "eyeliner" and a goatee...and our Basset Hound, who moved too slowly (okay, she was drowsing on the couch) had a black line down the side of her body. Oh, and there were black lines up and down the hallway, too...thankfully there is Mr. Clean erasers!

You're the expert, please help me:My SAH husband just called to ask if the ink from the ink pad I gave our 3 year old daughter will come out. I asked why and he said our DARLING 21 month old son got ahold of it and it's not only all over his face but the carpet and the couch too! I probably shouldn't have done this but I said, "Take pictures honey, this is great blog material." Then I said to try baby wipes because I've heard they take anything out of anything.

I soooo remember things like this! I awoke to giggling one morning to find my son in the hall growling and pretending to be "The Hulk". His sister had helped him get the food coloring off the top shelf and proceeded to assist him in turning nearly every inch of him green! He didn't enjoy the scrubbing that's for sure! By the way, food coloring is harder to remove than paint! I only wish we had digital cameras then, mine was out of film at the time.

Hi Dawn! I’ve never commented on your page before, but tonight I really have something to say….I really love reading your blogs because they’re so sweet and HONEST (something that’s hard to find in the world today!) I admire your strength and humor, and I hope that I show those qualities when I am a mother someday… I’m not a mom yet. I’m getting ready to graduate college and start at one of those business jobs my mom always dreamed of for me, so I’m not going to pretend like I know much about parenting. But like I said, I do have something to say and I think I’m gonna piggyback on your fame a bit so I can say it and think that someone might actually read it! I’m from Omaha, NE, and anyone who watches the news knows what happened today. Some 19 year old “kid” decided to open fire at the mall, killing 9 (including himself) and injuring several others. My grandma likes to shop, so the first thing I did when I got off work was to call her and see if she was okay. I asked her if stuff like this happened when she was raising her kids…all she could say were that times are way different these days. To me, this is really, really sad because it is my generation that seems to be starting all of these horrible things (Columbine, VA Tech, now this), and I’m so frustrated because it isn’t hard to see why these things are happening!!! I really think that many parents today are to blame. They’re so focused on careers and materialistic possessions that they allow their kids to be raised by overflowing daycares and video games. Heck, with these new “learning video games” parents don’t even have to sit down and help their kids learn numbers or spelling. And it’s very rare to see a parent discipline a kid today. With all of the political correctness and “it could hurt their self esteem” business, kids get by with basically anything and everything. And parents are making up for not being around by buying them anything their hearts desire instead of taking the time to sit down a couple times a week and read with them or play a game with them….It’s so sad! My stepmom has been a teacher for nearly 10 years in a small-town school, and she has always had great things to say about being a teacher. However, the last time I visited home she said she wanted to go back to school because kids today are getting worse and worse. Parents want TEACHERS to teach their kids discipline and they get mad when the teacher does discipline!!! Needless to say, all my friends who are teachers feel more like zookeepers and babysitters than educators… And these kids who grow up getting by with everything and who watch so much TV that their brains are filled with ideas about what they should have and how they should look to be happy end up sad and disappointed when they learn that they will never be skinny or that daddy will never afford to buy a BMW. And what do these kids do? Because they lack parental involvement to teach them confidence and self-acceptance, they take a gun to school…or the mall… I don’t know, but I have a feeling this is going to get worse before it will get better. I just know that I’m going to do my part to be the solution someday. Like you Dawn, I am going to be around for my kids (even if it means quitting my job). I’m going to play with them, read to them, PUNISH them (when needed), and teach them to respect themselves and respect others. I will NOT buy my kids’ love and I will NOT allow them to be disrespectful. I WILL love and educate them. I am just happy that you share your experiences with the world so that more parents can learn how fulfilling it really is to be a good, honest, hard-working mommy! I commend you!!!

You gotta read the book Kid Tea (I don't remember who wrote it), but it's a quick 10 page read for those of us with kids. It's all about dunk the kids in the bathtub to make a different color kid tea each day!

Okay, I totally enjoyed your post, but my favorite part was the last line. Every time we do something interesting at all, I say "Oh good, now I have something to blog about!" Sometimes we go do things JUST so I can have something to blog about. ha ha ha

There's only 74 comments when I'm leaving this but I thought I'd leave my 2 cents. The spiders really creeped me out. My kids got a lot of the plastic spider rings for Halloween.... and they've almost all found the garbage now.Loved the comment about the blue being sooooo 2006! (At first I thought you had another real yeller.)

These are the stories that will keep you laughing over Thansgiving dinner, 20 years from now. You will have photos to prove it and can embarrass the crap out of her in front of her new boyfriend. See, parents revenge!!!Seriously, my daughter once painted the bottoms of her feet with nail polish and then made foot prints on the floor. That was soooo fun to clean up!!

Oh my goodness - how cute is she? Blue and all. I'm sure that cleanup of that mess wasn't in your plan today, but like you said - at least it makes for good blog material. And great pictures to show her when her kids are making messes - a nice reminder!

And not trying to stir up any trouble, but the the mom who commented above, "Is it just me but has no one kind of wondered what she was doing by herself in a high chair long enough to pull this off...."

Ummm, hello? My daughter could have done that in a minute flat! It doesn't take that long to make a big mess! At first I thought, well - she must not have kids. But according to her 'name', she has 3, so I imagine her kids must not make many messes. Sorry, but it would offend me if someone just assumed I left my child unattended for huge blocks of time because they were fast mess makers! And I have a fast mess maker! I need to keep my camera a little more handy to prove it!! LOL!

Dear Dawn,This child is surely going to be an artist as much as she is drawn to painting on herself ( not to mention the inspiration she surely must be geting by being a human canvas to the other budding artist in the family).I LOVED this picture! It is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, who needs tv?Thanks for sharing!God bless,Elaine

Hi DawnWas it really "wordless" or speechless? Or then again was it that the only words you could think of maybe wouldnt look that good in print? Having been on the receiving end of those types of pranks, more times than Ive got space to mention, when I saw your pics a few choice words came immediately to mind.Funny how those kids of ours just keep on finding something else to do that stretches the bounds of our imagination, send us through every emotion known to man, plus a few more that we've only just invented, and no matter how angry we are when it happens much later we can manage to laugh about it.Its a pity that she didnt have time to roll herself over a canvas prior to her bath, the work of art she would have produced could have been worth a fortune later on when your books are published. LOL!Well a couple of things you can be thankful for this time is that it wasnt the contents of a daiper and that the damage was limited to the immediate area thanks to the restraints of the high chair. Blue is certainly her colour as possibly red or purple would have clashed with her beautiful eyes. LOL!Keep on smiling Dawn, your kids are wonderful... we always find time to laugh about things later even if we dont always happen to think so at the time.

I am just catching up as I missed a few days with a sick girl. Your daughter and my son are so similar. He's done the whole blue paint thing too. But his latest was mommy it snow....he used a whole bottle of baby powder to create snow in the living room...only pictures do that justice though. Best part was when our dog ran upstairs and I couldn't figure out what she had gotten into as she had white on her face. Figured flower or something. Come to find out he thought the dog needed some snow too.

Hi Dawn, The spider thing reminded me of what my dad use to do to us kids and my mom. He would roll back the toilet paper and draw a black spider on the paper and roll it back up. That was a scary thing to see! Scare the poop right out of us! Kristine in Michigan.

Love to read your stories. I've got 4 girls (15, 14, 12, and 16mo - yes you read that right - oh, and planning on adding another in HOPES for a boy, but will take what God gives us). Was really moved by Mimi's Quote on Michelle's ebay posting and send it off to several other mom's. Thanks for the laughs and good luck with the book.

oh, gosh, I looked at the bathtub, and thought "now that she´s ready to throw her personal blue man into the tub, there are spiders running around having a party in there!" I mean, that would have been kinda funny, having a whole spider family in the bathtub.